Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (47 page)

“And Gary Lee Smith wasn’t Lilac Sunday, either,” Peter said. “He was in jail at the time, too.”

“So Walsh? The Parole Board chairman? Thorley told you that? For his mortgage money?” Jane paused, thinking it through. “Huh. I’d actually wondered if his mortgage was paid because—”

She stopped, the rest of her sentence hanging between them. She’d promised Jake she wouldn’t reveal the bombshell he’d just dropped about Liz McDivitt, though he’d said it would be public soon. It stunk that her newspaper had been used to disseminate lies, though this wasn’t the moment to discuss journalism ethics. Or the undertakings of the very alive Liz McDivitt. Liz.
Alive.
Amazing.

“Look.” Jane pointed, changing the subject. “The door.”

The carved wooden door had closed behind the two men, Walsh first unlocking it, Jake following him inside. Exterior lights clicked on, the trees making flutters of leafy shadows on the driveway and grass.

“They’re in. I’d kill to be there to hear what they say.” Jane thought back over Chrystal’s articles. “From what I read, this Walsh was never linked to Lilac Sunday.”

Peter shook his head. “He was a county sheriff, though, and according to Thorley, knew Carley Marie. Maybe they—maybe Brogan can find out. But whoever’s guilty, it’s not Gordon Thorley. He was only trying to save his family’s home.”

“Maybe Elliot Sandoval was, too. In some irrational way. That’s how the whole thing started, for me at least.” Jane looked out the window at the house, wondering who was saying what inside. “TJ and I went to that foreclosure on Waverly Road. We thought it’d be an empty house. Turned out to be a can of worms.”

68

“I know everything.” Jake had refused the chair Walsh offered, a buckskin leather throne dotted with brass grommets. They’d seen no one else in the house, Walsh hadn’t called out to anyone, or announced his return. Jake hadn’t planned on this, and didn’t love being here alone, but he couldn’t allow Peter inside. Now he was in a potential battle, and without a strategy. On the way to Walsh’s overstuffed study Jake had considered and rejected several approaches—the truth, a lie, indirect—and decided on the big bluff.

“You know everything? There’s an intriguing opening statement.” Walsh swiveled in his desk chair, arms on the rests, one leg crossed over his knee. A black ribbed sock showed above his shiny loafer. The desk, glass-topped and glossy, held a stationery-store display of matching leather gizmos—holders, files, pads, and containers of pens. “Can I interest you in a drink? I seem to remember your grandfather liked his whiskey.”

“No, sir,” Jake said. Walsh was trying to defuse the attack. Jake’s tactics were exactly the opposite. “You and Gordon Thorley. The mortgage.”

“Who?” Walsh swiveled, once, twice, wrinkled that forehead, three lines creasing even deeper.

“The man you lost your job over, sir,” Jake said.

“Ah,” Walsh said.

“We know you were paying his mortgage.” Jake kept talking and watching Walsh, looking for the soft spot. The flinch, the tell. Nothing.

“Cashier’s checks,” Jake went on. “Back in your day, they weren’t traceable. Now? They are. Not to mention the security video from the post office. It may take a while to put it together, sir, but there’s no doubt.”

Still not a word from Walsh.

“You knew Carley Marie Schaefer, you knew her parents. What, did she have a crush on you? Or you on her? You drive her all the way to Boston? To the Arboretum? And then—”

“I think I’ll have that drink.” Walsh rose, his chair swiveling in a circle as he shoved away. Opened an elaborate wood sideboard, inside lined with crystal decanters. “You sure I can’t offer—”

“Sir?” Jake said. He’d go for the whole nine yards now, some yards of which Jake wasn’t quite sure of. Whatever wasn’t true they could sort out later. “We know about Thorley. He’s confessed. We can trace the checks, follow the money. We know about Gary Lee Smith. We know Treesa Caramona was another of your parolees. She trusted you, that how you got to her? That why she let you in to kill her? It’s done. You’re done. We know everything.”

He watched Walsh choose a glass, rummage in a drawer. Jake took a step back, wary.

“Not quite, Jake. What you don’t know,
Jake,
” Walsh said. He turned, smiling, perfect host, napkin in one hand, glass in the other. “If I killed Carley Marie Schaefer, why isn’t there one bit of evidence that leads to me? Not a shred? Have you examined the police files? I’m sure your grandfather made copies. And yet, no matter how hard he tried…”

Walsh paused, poured something brown from a decanter into his glass, wrapped it with the napkin, slugged the whole thing. Shook his head, as if in sorrow.

“And yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not catch that bad guy. Used to talk about it all the time. Like I said,
Jake.
I knew him. In fact, when the case was new? Yours truly Sheriff Walsh was one of the first to get a look at all the evidence. Thanks to my friendship with your dear grandfather. He thought we could solve that heinous”—he stumbled over the word—“crime together.”

Walsh poured another glass. Drank it. “That, however, was not my true objective.” Put the glass down, but missed. The glass fell onto the thick pile carpeting, rolled under the desk. He watched it, seemingly fascinated. “Not after dear Carley Marie told me she wanted to stop—‘seeing’ me. I knew what her medical records would show. I’d planned her visit to the—doctor. But sadly, she wasn’t happy with that plan. Sadly, your grandfather’s cops neglected to notice the medical files weren’t exactly the same after I examined them.”

“You took—you changed—?” Jake began. He felt the back of his neck tighten, thought of his grandfather, his sorrow and defeat; his grandmother, who’d watched failure eat away at her husband. Walsh—a law enforcement officer—had access to the evidence, knew exactly what to alter, and how to do it. Back then he’d tried to erase the history of his guilt.

Now it was Jake’s turn to play with the truth.

“
Times
change, Walsh. These days tests are better. And they’re already underway. Even if Thorley had convinced us, we’d still have found you.” Jake was semi-bluffing, since they probably had no samples of Walsh’s DNA on file. He had to rely on Walsh’s fear. “We have the rope, remember? You ever heard of ‘handler DNA’?”

“Ah. Progress.” Walsh almost smiled. “Your grandfather, devoted as he was, simply didn’t have the tools. Died a bit, over the Carley Marie case, I always thought. So sad. And now, after all this time, here’s another Brogan, come to solve the Lilac Sunday case. After twenty damn anniversaries, twenty damn years of frigging DNA and forensic tests and God knows what else. Twenty damn anniversaries waiting for some cop to show up here with a warrant for a cheek swab. Now here you are. And a Brogan to boot.”

Jake thought about what Nate Frasca had told him: how crime preyed on the mind, how relentless fear could fester and destroy, could become a man’s personal poison.

Walsh reached into the drawer. Took out a gun.

“Walsh!” Jake pulled his weapon, aimed it.

“No need, my boy,” Walsh said. “Happy anniversary. Good luck to you.”

Walsh aimed at his own head. And fired.

69

Nothing better than a front-page story.

Jane leaned against the doorjamb of the city editor’s office, her eyes still on the gorgeous Saturday morning paper. “Internet or no,” she said. “You can’t beat real paper with real words printed on it.”

“Former Parole Chief Cons Con,” the page-one headline said. “Lilac Sunday Plot Foiled, Murder Solved.” Not exactly
The New York Times.
Victoria Marcotte, of course, had composed the headers.

“Looks great.” Marcotte sat at her desk, eyes on her monitor, clicking through the online edition. She nodded with every click, approving.

Jane had stayed up all night, banging out the stories on her newsroom computer, fueled by coffee and passion. Truth be told, she thought. She’d finally gotten her exclusive. Two of them. As far as she was concerned, today should be Jane Ryland day at the
Register.

On the front page, a huge spread on Lilac Sunday. Edward Walsh, the altered evidence, Gordon Thorley, Treesa Caramona, the mortgage payments, all of it. After a late-night flurry of promises, concessions, and court orders, Gordon Thorley was released, able to spend his last weeks with his family at their Sagamore home.

Which would stay their home. What Jane couldn’t reveal yet, Peter Hardesty had told her—off the record,
of course—
he was negotiating with the cops to give Thorley, now a hero, the reward money for turning in the Lilac Sunday killer. Pretty funny, if it turned out Thorley’s deal with Edward Walsh would
legally
provide his mortgage payments. There’d be plenty to pay the whole thing off, in full.

Jane’s bank story, just as blockbuster, splashed across the front page of Metro. The whole juicy thing, complete with the police pretense about Liz McDivitt that uncovered the bank employees’ rental scheme and the stories behind the two empty-house deaths, culminating with the arrests of Brian Turiello, Colin Ackerman, and little fish Aaron Gianelli. It featured Jane’s own cell phone photo of Turiello—Lexus guy—at the scene of Shandra Newbury’s murder.

Elliot Sandoval himself, arm and shoulder bandaged, confessed what happened to Emily-Sue Ordway: “It was an accident,” the re-arrested Sandoval had insisted from his hospital bed. As for Shandra Newbury, he’d publicly confessed his role in that, too. Jane was at police headquarters when the cops perp-walked him to the transport van. “‘Turiello made me do it, she found out about the rental thing,’ Sandoval yelled as he was led away. ‘Said he’d frame me for Emily-Sue if I didn’t…’ And then he’d disappeared into custody.”

Peter had refused the legal fees once he learned the funds came from Turiello—he was now representing Sandoval pro bono. “A client is a client, and plenty of them have lied to me,” he’d told Jane. “Innocent or guilty. The system has to work.”

MaryLou was in hiding. Soon as the cops found her, she’d need a lawyer of her own.

Jane also quoted Superintendent Rivera in her article: “Apparently Miss Newbury had discovered the rental scheme and threatened to blow the whistle.”

Another Rivera quote was boxed in the sidebar, in bold. “We didn’t lie to the public about Elizabeth McDivitt. We did what we had to do.”

Civil rights groups were up in arms over the deception, social media going crazy. “Trampling our rights is just plain wrong,” one Tweet began. Jane had to admit the cops duping the press did feel wrong, 100 percent wrong. Jake insisted sometimes you had to lie to get to the truth. That conversation was far from over.

“This whole cop thing is so buzzable,” Marcotte was saying. Her silver bracelets jangled as she propped an elbow on her desk. “Sorry about your deal with Peter Hardesty.”

“
Our
deal,” Jane said. “Besides, I was never too hot on—”

“And we’ll skip your Lilac Sunday retrospective,” Marcotte continued, ignoring her. “Handle Walsh as breaking news.”

“I suppose.” Jane reluctantly closed the gorgeous paper, planning to snag a few extra copies. She’d send one to her dad, proof she’d redeemed herself. But one part of the story still bugged her.

“About that retrospective,” Jane said.”I simply could not find those people Chrystal interviewed back then, you know? It would have been such a great follow-up if I—”

“Jane.” Marcotte flipped her monitor to black. “Good job on that. Have a seat, okay?”

“Good job on what?” Jane hated that couch. Stayed standing.

“I should tell you—I’ve been using you to fact check.”

“Fact check what? Or, who?”

“Chrystal Peralta,” Marcotte said. “We determined—and I know I can trust you to keep it quiet—she’s been creating quotes. Inventing interviews. For years. Not all the time. Only, we found, when it was—convenient. We suspected her draft of the bank story was fabricated. Now you’ve discovered she apparently created the ‘supposed’ bystanders at the Lilac Sunday murder.”

“
Supposed
bystanders?” Jane sank into the couch. She didn’t care how low it was. She remembered, a few days ago, Chrystal had suggested she “just make it up.” Jane had dismissed it, an obvious joke.

“Her stories are lies?” Jane tried to grasp the consequences, the damage. “How are we going to address that? We need to make the public aware—”

“We most certainly do not,” Marcotte cut her off. “From what we found, it was nothing critical. Or legally actionable. Chrystal is certainly not going to open her mouth about it. What’s more, she actually admitted having an affair with a source. Talk about unacceptable—well. She’s history. No longer with the paper. Circulation is up, finally. What the readers don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Jane stood, shaking her head. So much for the tell-Victoria-the-truth-about-Jake idea. But Chrystal Peralta was fabricating news stories? And Marcotte ignoring it? No. No way.

“We’re in the business of history,” Jane said. “Readers rely on us. What we write—
becomes
the truth. Especially after what the police did. We can’t allow this.”

“Of course we can,” Marcotte said. “No one will ever know, right? Now, go. Write your story.”

*   *   *

Lizzie stared at the front page of this morning’s
Register.
She’d read Jane Ryland’s story, over and over. All in black and white, the words “murder” and “conspiracy” and “fraudulent rentals.” Her own name, again and again, accompanied by “courageous” and “insider” and “bait.” But in reality, nothing was black and white. Nothing.

She was back at her desk at the bank, open as usual on Saturday morning, her father back upstairs in his executive suite. How long would they stay there? The A&A board of directors would meet this afternoon. His future hung in the balance.

Hers? That was in question, too.

She was alive, at least. She soaked up the normal for as long as she could, gazing through her open office door, out past Stephanie’s desk to the familiar hallway, and finally to the elevator door. Which would never again open to reveal Aaron Gianelli. She shook her head, seeing the empty spot on her desk where his photo used to be. She’d tossed it into a wastebasket. Done.
History.